Sunday, November 18, 2007

The story of a little bug begins at an innocent first birthday party for my girlfriend's niece. Some anonymous guest, hoping to get some delicious baked treats and a snapshot with the adorable baby, casually saunters into the party and pours some pop into a plastic container. Presumably, after partaking in said eating and picture-taking, the guest then places the unmarked container next to another unmarked container filled with the same substance. My girlfriend's sister-in-law, mistaking the anonymous guest's cup for her own, then drinks the vile serum.

Carnage ensues.

First the sister-in-law, then her cousin, then my girlfriend.

Then me.

Oh, what violence the 24-hour stomach flu hath wrought! The queasiness! The chills!

The Lorwyn Release Events? Sign me up for League #1064499, please!

I suppose being sick has its perks. Missing three classes and a lab ain't so bad when you can join a Sealed League. Especially when you go 5-0 in that League the same day. Especially when the pool is so damn interesting, you can build three different builds out of it before your day is through. Here's the pool:

White -Summon the SchoolFavor of the MightyDawnflukeGoldmeadow DodgerHarpoon SniperHillcomber GiantJudge of CurrentsKinsbaile BalloonistKithkin HealerOaken BrawlerVeteran of the DepthsWellgabber Apothecary

As you'll notice, almost every color is playable, with White being the clear weakest link. What I always do with my Sealed pool, before I do anything else, is cut away everything but the stuff would almost certainly play if I were playing that color. For Lorwyn, I include cards that are playable if I have the necessary tribal interactions. After this sifting is complete, I go and see if the other colors have those tribal interactions. If they do not, I scrap those cards during the next step of my pool evaluation process. So here's the color breakdown (cards that are only playable if the necessary tribal interactions are there are in parenthesis):

White is clearly the weakest of the colors, with only Oblivion Ring, Kinsbaile Balloonist, and the Summon the School to get excited about. Looking at the blue cards, the School is not going to see play because Surgespanner is the only exciting Merfolk in the pile. This cuts Judge of Currents, and with no tribal interactions or exciting synergies to speak of, we cut white.

Ah, the Wings! My favorite card in the format. Personal bias aside, blue has a lot of power, if not a lot of depth. A total bomb with Surgespanner, a solid team of fliers with Mulldrifter on top, and two playable counterspells. I consider counters to be very important tricks in Sealed, much more so than Draft, so two good ones is a real incentive to play blue. The depth just isn't there, so we can't base ourselves in blue, even though it is a likely second color.

Aside from stuff like Lignify, Zephyr Net, and Glimmerdust Nap, these black spells and Oblivion Ring are our only playable removal spells. This gives us a real strong incentive to play black. Fortunately, Dreamspoiler Witches, Peppersmoke, and Shriekmaw are all splashable. Also conveniently, our only Vivid land is black. Unfortunately, the color is not very deep at all. The Birth Rite gets back nothing, there is no internal curve or synergy in the color. This black is like an upgraded white; odds are we'll just splash for its removal.

Very nice red. Lots of solid guys. Sadly, aside from the Blades, that's all we have. However, the guys all have a nice curve and a solid internal synergy. The Stinkdrinker teams nicely with the army of Giants. Our most bomby non-Shriekmaw creature, Changeling Berskerer, is also in this color, with a Harbinger to find him. Admittedly, it is off Curve, but whatever. I really like the raw, explosive potential of the red in this pool. Glarewielder and the Berseker are solid playmakers. Again, however, we don't quite have the makings of a deck. We have a lot of second colors.

That's all five colors. No solid starter yet. We have our unadulterated bomb of the pool, Garruk, in this color, giving us a super strong incentive to play him. While Green is our most plentiful color, it is also the one with the least depth. So much crap in this color. Woodland Guidance, Sylvan Echoes, and Elvish Eulogist? We do have Garruk, however. And in a pool that is more likely to win off of power than consistency, Fertile Ground is a major help.

All playable stuff, and two cards to help us splash. Deathrender, while a build-around me card at best, is also a beatstick even if you can't abuse it with multiple Warren Pilferers. Horde of Notions is unplayable chaff. However, with Shriekmaw and Mulldrifter in the pool, along with a strong possibility of a double splash, it's almost tempting...

The First Deck

I took my first iteration of the deck through round one before scrapping it and trying something new. My initial deck building process was to Squeeze as much consistency out of the pool as I could, and then shore up the weaknesses with off-color splashes. Since Red and Blue are my deepest overall colors, I decided to start working with them. The two colors had a lot of nice synergies, too: they both had Changeling instants and the Harbingers to go with them, red had guys and blue had tricks. It seemed like a solid match. After some tweaks for the curve, here is what the first build looked like:Red -Soulbright FlamekinStinkdrinker DaredevilBlind-Spot GiantLowland OafChangeling BersekerGlarewielderAxegrinder GiantBlades of Velis Vel

I decided to go with 18 land in this deck since the curve starts on turn three. I feel this deck has the highest overall card quality, but it is probably the weakest deck. Put simply, the deck is schizophrenic. It appears to play the control game, but aside from Mulldrifter, Shriekmaw, and the two counterspells, all its guys were built to smash face. Glarewielder isn't the most impressive five-drop when you started your curve on turn three with Moonglove Extract.

Even though I won the first match I played with this deck, I wasn't happy with it. While the deck wasn't lacking in individual card quality, it was lacking in focus. The cards did not form a cohesive deck, so it was really hard to play towards a cohesive strategy. Sometimes, just laying cards that are better than your opponent's cards will work. That is, until you get to the point where their cards are just as good as yours.

The Final Deck

So where do we go to fix the issue? What swaps can we make to decide on a cohesive strategy? Well, one way to do it is to fully cement ourselves in the control role. Of all the color combinations best suited to do this, GU seemed to be the ticket. Here was my second attempt.Blue –PestermiteSurgespannerSentinels of Glen ElendraFaerie HarbingerMulldrifterWings of Velis VelFaerie TrickeryBroken AmbitionsGlimmerdust Nap

I know, I know. Just looking at that mana base is making me sick all over again. Despite the fact that I added a color, I actually trimmed back a land with this build. Why? Because the extra land was cut for Wanderer's Twig and a Fertile Ground made it into the deck as well. This deck also has a lower curve, with more than twice the two- drops while cutting a six-drop and holding the top end relatively constant. For this deck, I feel the overall power level has skyrocketed, thanks to the addition of Garruk and Oblivion Ring, even if individual card choices are weaker than the ones in red.

This is the deck I played for the other four matches in my Sealed League. The mana, surprisingly, was never an issue. Despite needing GGUUB to operate efficiently and GGUUBW to cast all its spells, the magic that is Vivid Marsh and Fertile Ground got me there. Each card showed up at least once per game, and if they didn't, I naturally drew into the needed basic (or Mulldrifter found it for me). The only time I struggled on colored mana was needing UU once for Surgespanner, but thankfully I had Garruk to untap some lands for me.

You might say I got lucky, and maybe I did. But I think that superior deck building, with an eye towards balancing power with consistency, helped me maximize the luck when it came. The most important improvement that this deck has over the previous one is a more focused game plan. In fact, I can almost justify playing the Zephyr Net in this deck over the Oblivion Ring if the mana makes you uncomfortable. Thinking of it now, the Zephyr Net probably deserved a slot anyway, maybe even over my beloved Wings of Velis Vel. This deck is an outright control deck, hoping to either lock the game early with a Surgespanner backed with removal, generate hordes of card advantage through Deathrender, Shriekmaw, and Mulldrifter, or play to the long game where Garruk can blow people out. This build gives me the best chance to outplay my opponent, as well. It's not just a collection of quick or fat guys to throw at my opponent in the hopes that they bring his life total to zero before I have to make a difficult play. Instead, the selection of cards gives me lots of subtle opportunities to get an edge in tempo or cards. This build also maximizes my removal suite. As we all know, removal is a scarce and precious commodity in Limited formats, especially Lorwyn. Even though I am playing two of the cards I feel are just awful removal spells, Lignify and Glimmerdust Nap, I feel they are necessary. Hell, I even want to Squeeze Zephyr Net in. I will rue the day when someone resolves Wispmare, or even Spring Cleaning, against me. ‘Til then, though, I will take whatever control cards I can for this build.

The Alternate Deck

Even after all that logical thought, the Timmy in me couldn't help but bring the deck-building full circle. If I already tried UR and GU, why not RG? In Sealed Leagues, you can play five matches a week. These count towards your main score. Every match you play after that builds up your tiebreakers. For these matches, I decided to try out the GR version of the deck. So far, I am 3-2 with this build. While that is clearly worse than the 5-0 I went with the blue cards, against some decks, the red cards were a clear beating. The stream of red fat backed up by Garruk is simply too much for most blue-based Sealed pools to handle. This is great to know because now I have a very strong sideboard option that can turn some matchups around. Here's how the RG version looks.

This deck is clearly more aggressive and abuses Changeling Berserker to its fullest. A deck like this also turns Glarewielder into a bomb, often punching through 8+ damage and ending games out of nowhere. This build also abuses the aggressive aspects of Garruk much more effectively, more often dropping him late and using the +1 and -4 abilities in successive turns. With two haste guys and the maximum number of two- and three-drops available in the pool, why not? While this deck is clearly strong, it suffers from Timmy syndrome. Better players with trickier pools will often outplay you, not only because they're better, but because this card selection doesn't really give you too many real plays to make other than cast this guy, swing. You can get tricky with Deathrender and Blades of Velis Vel, but that's about it. With Sealed PTQs coming up, I would definitely recommend maximizing the “trickiness value” you could get out of your pool.

When building your deck, keep in mind you are doing just that: building a deck. You are not throwing a bunch of good cards of the same colors together and hoping that they will do the work for you. By arming yourself with the best tools to outplay your opponents and by building the deck with the best cohesive strategy, you give yourself the best chance of winning the most games.

I will be heading down to Daytona Beach for the Grand Prix this weekend, so if you see me down there, say hello!